Cold Pastoral

by Margaret Duley

  “Hush, Mary,” said Felice firmly, “that’s not like you to give way. Here, my dear, take my handkerchief.” But no tears had fallen. They had merely gone into wild laughter.

  “Felice, Felice,” she said, dropping her head, “at that moment the maid came in to say the ham and eggs were ready.”

  Felice looked at her husband. Life’s anti-climaxes! He had nothing to say. He had gone into the girl’s story.

  “Tim got rid of the maid somehow, and he stood leaning against the door. For a moment I thought he was going to use force to keep me. But I said, ‘Tim, please, let me go,’ and without a word he moved away from the door, and said, ‘O.K., Gretel,’ as he always said. Then I could have cried out loud. For the first time I wanted to stay, and make him see how awful we were, starting on one of the Sacraments with just a man blessing us in his bedroom slippers, and with the picture of a fat child for an altar. To me that could never be marriage, even if I hadn’t been thrown into it. Then I remembered Mater and Philip—and I thought I was going foolish—but I left! I just looked back at Tim, and he smiled in the old way—‘O.K., Gretel,’ he said again. ‘I know it’s black sails for me!’ I ran out wishing I could cry and cry, but I’m not used to that….”

  Now David was letting a tear fall on the leg of his trousers. Felice met his eyes. Whatever the girl might feel, her marriage to the boy was irrevocable, for life. It was a country without divorce! Then his eyes brightened. She knew he saw annulment. Mary’s voice was getting dreary.

  “As I ran out I saw the ham and eggs on a table. The fat had grown cold. When I was outside I ran down the road, but the headlights of a car were coming, so I hid behind a spruce tree. From where I stood I could see into the window. Tim was there, standing where I had left him. Then he went to the piano and played like a maniac with the loud pedal down. The girl came in, and he said something, and she came back with a tray and three bottles. He opened them and drank all three. Then he paid and rushed out of the house, past the tree, and down to where his car was parked. I never heard such a noise as the way he started, with everything grinding. Then I ran myself—”

  Felice had been listening. She was the only one in the room whose outward ears could function during the girl’s incredible story. She had heard the clang of the gate and a distant scrunch, increasing to a loud tramp of feet. There was no care in the feet. They came with violation of this family secret. Were late visitors going to crash in? So many casual people thought a country house was an agreeable end to a long loafing evening. This must be a large party. No, everything about this approach was unrestrained, high, shrill and full of herd excitement. The sound rolled to the steps, clattered to the balcony and paused, before a loud assault of rings and knocks. Every sound was full of resentment for locks and keys. It held confusion and urgency, demanding the right of instant entrance.

  The maids were in bed.

  Mary Immaculate had come to a dead stop, with her ears caught at last.

  “Darling,” said Felice softly, “go to the door.”

  The words coiled over to David, making him rise to his feet. Arriving at the noise, he must have opened the door suddenly, the increase in volume was so great. It had a tumbril quality, rattling with the crescendo of a mob. It was difficult to sort words, until they heard one voice beat down others by sheer shrillness of sound.

  “…hell to pay, sir. Would Doctor Fitz Henry be here? Someone said they saw his car on the road. Shocking accident half a mile up. Fellow coming back to town; sloven without lights in the middle of the road. The driver went into the ditch to save going through it, but he side-swiped—the horse is dead—”

  “Well, my dear fellow, my brother is not a horse doctor, and I’m afraid you must get someone else.” David’s voice was like a cool douche on excitement. It had its effect in lowering the suppliant voice.

  “Sorry, sir. I mean to say, there’s two men dying or dead. The driver of the sloven was crushed, and the young fellow is stuck full of glass—”

  Young fellow! The awful casualness of David’s voice.

  “Too bad! perhaps I can get the doctor if it is urgent. Would it be anyone we know?”

  The name was creeping along the hall.

  “Well, sir, the man on the sloven is a farmer up the Shore. The young fellow was…” A dozen mouths said it, with a triumph of knowledge.

  “Vincent! Name of Vincent! Tim Vincent! Young fellow home from university! Son of a widow! Nephew of…”

  As Philip stepped out of the sun-porch, Mary Immaculate leaped to her feet like the spring of a fountain.

  “Jesus of Nazareth!” she said like a wild prayer. “You, Philip—”

  Hands sawed the air, trying to clutch at something that might hold her. Legs crumpled, and she sprawled in long spent lines over a green chair. David was in the room, with half the invasion at his back.

  “Just a moment,” he said coolly, closing the door in its face. “Phil, you heard, are you going ?”

  Philip stood looking from the door shut on the mob to the deathlike girl in the chair. She was related intimately to the mob.

  “I’ll look after this, Philip,” said Felice, giving him a shove. “I can cope with a faint. David, go with him.”

  NINETEEN

  “DESPERATE PILOT.”

  As David pushed Philip towards a car parked behind the trellis, he thought: This is worse than France. At least that was organized. He had to admire his brother. Temper and unreason seemed to be confined to his personal life. Even before the significant issue of this emergency, self had retreated. As he started his car and saw the crowd, his voice was a whip to impediment.

  “Stand back, all of you! Do you want another accident? Open the gate, somebody.”

  The command made the crowd surge ahead. As the headlights picked it up, David saw men and women flatten themselves against the darkness while Philip roared by. There was no time for comment over Mary Immaculate’s startling revelations, and what the outcome would be neither dared conjecture. Safety lay in concentrating on their outward way. It seemed as if none of the joy-riders had gone home. This macabre finish to a summer evening was being witnessed by countless eyes. Better than a fire, people were running helter-skelter to see. Headlights were witless beams, picking up summer colour— the gleam of a girl’s hair, or the splash of her painted mouth. At a congested spot some cars had been slanted to illumine the core of excitement. The outcome of the boy and girl’s long secret lay in merciless exposure. A car was crumpled in the ditch, bonnet down, with its back wheels reared in tortured surprise. A pony and cart were horribly fused, looking as if the latter had been urged into shaggy haunches.

  “Stay here, Dave, and turn if you can. Pass my bag.”

  A crowd is as sensitive as a single unit. The doctor’s arrival stirred every head in his direction. He moved in the fullest limelight.

  “Stand back! Stand back! Stand back, I tell you!”

  A baffled roar from some official throat was barely heeded. The crowd moved reluctantly. The curtain was up and the doctor was there to speak the pieces. Philip moved forward, taller than most men, with the light accentuating his white face and black hair. David heard his voice quite distinctly, the professional voice falling idly on fever.

  “If I’m to work, kindly give me room. Has anyone telephoned for an ambulance?”

  “Yes, sir,” answered a policeman. “It’s on the way. There you are, sir. We’ve made a circle.”

  David was able to see. Two figures lay on the road. One had been straightened and lay supine. First aid must have been rendered at once, as the figure had been eased on a sheet, ready for lifting. The sheet was full of dark stains. Near its white edge lay a slighter body, crumpled in a mute heap. First aid seemed to have been supplied there. There was a tourniquet on one wrist, and a thick pad tied above one knee. Philip bent from one to the other, straightening in momentary indecision.

  God, thought David sensitively, has he got to decide which one to save? That’s a nice proble
m in his state. If he lives, the boy will have to face a trial for manslaughter. The beer that he drank! The road-house will give evidence, and if the marriage comes out they’ll say he was crazed. What publicity! I must get busy on that—find the editor—Phil has made up his mind—the boy! What else could he do?

  He saw his brother kneel to the crumpled figure, and turn it over with experienced hands. From the arm turned to the ground came a high jet of blood, with the light giving full value to rich arterial red. Ichor blood, thought David, with a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. For a moment he lowered his head, and when he looked again he saw the deft adjustment of another tourniquet. The boy must have recognized his doctor. Agitation had gone into limbs making a defiant effort to rise. Philip seemed to be adequate. As he leaned towards the boy David saw the difference in the two heads. The very dark and the very fair! Whatever was said effected a return to mute weakness. Philip stood up, walking determinedly towards his brother. The crowd craned to hear, but he leaned inside the car.

  “Turn, for God’s sake! We can take the boy in. There’s nothing to do with the other case until the ambulance comes. Hopeless, I’m afraid. Crushed at the thigh and terrific shock. The boy is urgent. Severed an artery, and he’s lost a lot of blood. Get going, Dave.”

  David had his own idea of leadership. Leaning out of the window he made a cool announcement. “I’m going to turn. This is the doctor’s car, and he’s taking one of the cases in. Every man for himself.”

  Even in the confusion there was a good-humoured laugh. Ready to be distracted, the crowd turned the car almost by hand. Tim was carried to the open door. Stepping inside, Philip received his head and shoulders, propping them sideways, and arranging his legs across the seat. Then he sat on the edge, supporting the body of Mary Immaculate’s husband.

  “Get going, Dave. The police are making the hospital arrangements. Go as fast as you can.”

  It was difficult, but at last they were isolated, leaving the mess of cars behind to wait for the removal of the other case. For a while there was no sound until the uneasy silence was broken by a young bitter laugh exploding over sobbing breath.

  “God, the Fitz Henrys! What a joke! One of those ironical stories the French write.”

  The personal equation had been scuppered from Philip. His voice was at its most fever-reducing pitch.

  “Take it easy, Vincent. You can choose your doctor as soon as you get to town. I’ll pass you right over. Just at present try to conserve your strength.”

  There was a conceding sigh and a reply drained of rebellion.

  “No, patch me up if you can. She says you’re swell.”

  “Very well,” said Philip tersely.

  More black silence writhing with raw emotions.

  “Am I done in, sir ?” He was showing the deference of youth to an older man, although his voice held defiance.

  “Not if you show sense, Vincent. You’re using yourself up.”

  “It doesn’t matter any more,” said Tim with another sobbing breath. “God!” he continued restlessly as if tortured with one thought, “that it should be you, after tonight! Her doctor—”

  “And, my dear chap,” said Philip soothingly, “you’re her husband. Isn’t that worth living for ?”

  David’s feet nearly jittered on the pedals. The reserves that people can pull up! The angel and devil in man! Out of this mess Philip was being the perfect doctor, soothing, encouraging and pointing the way to a future. “You’re her husband, Vincent,” he said again, as if he might have forgotten it. “We know about it, and we’ll help all we can. Don’t worry.”

  Tim’s weak voice was despairing.

  “She doesn’t think so, sir! Tin-whistle side, that’s what it was.” He seemed to slump, then gather his forces for a final effort. “Sorry I was a cad, not to speak up when I saw what old witchface meant. Witches’ disenchantment—no, no, she can’t do that to Gretel and me—”

  “No, she can’t,” said Philip firmly. “Vincent, nothing can undo what I did tonight. Help me to repair it by saving your own body.”

  It was an appeal to intelligence rather than emotion. The boy went very silent, thinking perhaps over Philip’s Gethsemane. With the egotism of youth he needed to be shown other sorrows than his own. David seemed to follow him, even through a resurgence of defiance.

  “Damn you, sir,” he exploded, “why should I apologize when you thought such things ? If you can’t see she’s as clean as God, why should I tell you?”

  “Why, indeed?” said Philip with weary bitterness.

  “You never knew her,” accused the boy, determined to spend himself for his idol. “Gretel never threw her sex in a fellow’s face. She’s not a bitchy girl. You took her, and stuck her up like your own damn family. Who are you, anyway?”

  Philip’s voice was very patient and courteous.

  “Just people who make mistakes.”

  Apparently it was an effective reply. Tim gave a bitter, heartbroken sob. “Sure, mistakes! We don’t know what we’re doing. Did anyone telephone my mother ?”

  “Yes, they did. She’ll be at the hospital.”

  The boy was beyond thought of his own state. The gigantic muddle of the evening had shattered his last reserve. He cried hard young tears. “Poor Mother! In her own way she’s been swell. Now I’m giving her this. God, I should care, but can only think of the mess I’ve made for Gretel. I don’t care who knows it. She’s all I care about because she is my life.”

  “Vincent,” said Philip with slow emphasis, “you’re doing everything to kill yourself. Mary will be there for you when you get well. Now can’t you trust us and relax?”

  The lights of the town were in sight, cool in their shine on dark roads. Windows blinked as if opening eyes under black lids. The town slept, oblivious of violence. Only the trees and grass shivered with the emotions of the night.

  The boy was either resting or unconscious. Once, looking back for a brief second, David saw his brother holding him. The fair head had slumped towards the black one. Philip had blood-spatters on his cuffs, and a dried smear on his forehead.

  On through the sleeping town towards the dimmed bulk of a building, and up a dark avenue. Tim spoke once more, mumbling from thought jerking him back from coma. “Did I kill anything, sir? Couldn’t live and kill—”

  “A man injured like yourself, Vincent. The sloven had no lights. You couldn’t be to blame. We’ll do our utmost, and let you know how he is. Don’t worry, there’s a good fellow.”

  Tim had given himself up. Philip had him to work on, regardless of issues. He was as mute and white as death when they carried him in. Watching the shattered retreat, David went back through the years, seeing prone bodies and the ghosts of his own brothers.

  David had a long vigil. Telephoning Felice, she reported Mary Immaculate brushing her faint aside and prowling round like a tormented creature. He told all he knew, saying he would ring again when Tim had been stitched and ligatured. Hesitating on telling them to be ready to come to town, he hung up. Why anticipate Tim’s black sails? What would be worse? Tim taking his opportunity to die or facing a trial for manslaughter? His culpability was bound to come out. Supposing the girl had to be a witness of his wild flight up the Shore? What notoriety! It was unbelievable, unthinkable, so many consequences from a single night! No, thought David, that was not the start, it was the result of a child’s romantic secret. In that raw drive David had divined the fabric of Tim. His voice was charming, and in health he must have a dreamy, unusual face. Above all he was Mary’s contemporary, the boon companion of her youth. And now they had been hounded out of their gentle places. Lines tripped across David’s mind as he walked gloomily up and down.

  Oh, why in all a world of sweet

  Bird-song and dew and light and heat

  Comes this malignity of death ...

  Was the boy predestined? In telling of his life the girl had portrayed him born with music, rendered frustrate. He had spirit, and had spent himself in t
earing down Philip’s ivory tower. Tin-whistle side? There, he was wounded, being too young to understand a virginal flight from gun-shot marriage.

  A long wait brought long thought, until David’s vision was compelled to objective survey. He saw the other case brought in, a prostrate mass on a stretcher, with doctors and nurses swarming round. One brief glance at an underprivileged face made David resigned to the man’s passing. There was no stamina where stamina would be needed. Conviction for manslaughter was certain, with a boy driving a car under the influence of three bottles of beer. Then he saw people who were undeniably the relations so graphically described by the girl. The mother was identified by her likeness to the boy. She walked down the corridor in passive calm, emotion hidden under her eyelids. By right of her maternity she disappeared to more intimate contact with her son, while the others waited. These must be Uncle and Auntie Minnie.

  Uncle was large, dominant, with convex eyes. His stomach was the same shape, neatly buttoned into a summer overcoat. He would have been inspiring as a policeman. David could imagine the stomach shaking with laughter over slapstick comedy, and the eyes dozing through all the things Tim liked to see and hear. Auntie Minnie carried her bag. Evidently the type who never wasted a moment! Even as she waited in the corridor, she sank to a seat, knitting some coloured wool. It was impossible not to notice her stabbing eyes. It was the restless gaze of a woman resenting closed doors, and people entering where she was denied. When her eyes found David, she half rose from her chair. Without conscious discourtesy he became rapt before a picture of some starched nurses. Even when his right flank was exposed he decided it was beyond his capacity to cope with Auntie Minnie tonight. He was relieved beyond words when they passed down the corridor, with the obvious intention of being nearer the scene of operations. Alone for an unconscionable time, he must have dozed in a chair, when he awoke suddenly to see Philip standing above him. The ghastly whiteness of his brother’s face foreshadowed the worst.